Psychotik Mouse

My wife and I went to Sweet Tomatoes last night for dinner.  We don't do the buffet thing very often, but it had been a long day and neither of us had eaten much.  I'll start by saying that nothing I'm about to say is a reflection on Sweet Tomatoes as a company, nor is it intended to be a slam on their staff.  No, this is solely about the people patronizing buffets in general, I just happened to be at Sweet Tomatoes when I had this revelation.  That said I witnessed something that has turned me off from the whole buffet concept and got me thinking for the first time what it really means to eat at a buffet of any type.

I finally got around to giving Google Chrome an honest try.  I have to say I'm pretty impressed by it so far.  My web surfing is noticeably faster even over Firefox which makes me a little sad to say because I have been in love with Firefox since it's very first versions. Chrome was really simple to install and imported (correctly) all of my bookmarks and saved passwords from Firefox, which is a far cry better than Internet Explorer did.

I upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 a while back.  I don't really use it much, but since I've been doing more web design of late I felt it was a good idea to have it for testing purposes.  When I installed it I was under the distinct impression that it, like Chrome, was going to import my bookmarks from Firefox.  It did, but it didn't import them correctly.  The stuff I have in my links bar didn't make it and to make matters even worse I discovered that it had dropped a bunch of new folders on the root of my C:\ drive containing nothing but book mark files.  To add insult to injury these folders had the same names of my bookmark folders in Firefox.

That said, the real nail in the coffin with me was when I took a look at my new web page (which is almost ready to go live, by the way) I discovered that IE was completely ignoring the styles on my navigation links.  Everything else seems to have rendered just fine, but now I have to go figure out what little quirk of IE8 makes this happen.  As far as I can tell there should be no reason for it.  I'm not using any sort of proprietary CSS... I like to keep things consistent with W3C standards so there really should be no reason for this to be happening.

I can't say I should really be all that surprised.  Microsoft has a history of "going rogue" with standards.  It seems like for every "standard" programming concept out there, MS seems to want to put their own spin on it.  On the one hand, that's how innovation happens, but on the other hand if you have an accepted standard why on earth would you at the very least make sure your stuff is compatible?

All that said, I am most definitely not a fan of Internet Explorer and in the modern day browser wars it would seem clear to me that Google Chrome is at the head of the pack with Firefox a close second if not tied for the lead.

I feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life.  Things are changing (for the better I think) and the person I used to be isn't really the same person I am now.  Certainly there are core parts of me that have not and never will change, but at the same time I'm in a completely different place in my life than I was say five years ago.  In some ways I am exactly where I hoped I would be, and in other ways things are completely different than I wanted.

Having said that, I feel that it is time to make some changes in my life to reflect this new path I'm taking.  I've decided to start changing my online persona from "Psychotik Mouse" which has been me for several years to "The Unicoder".  Computer geeks out there will likely get the joke, but those who don't run in those circles probably won't, so I'll explain the joke.  It's a play on the infamous "Unibomber" and "Unicode".  One is a way to represent a character (i.e letters, numbers, symbols) on a computer using 16 bits instead of the traditional 8 bits used by ASCII thus allowing for a greater range of characters to be represented.  The other is a notorious bomber that I'm sure needs no explanation as to who he was.  I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is which.

Since this new path I'm on seems to involve more coding, I thought it was a clever play on what I'm doing these days.  I've been debating on whether or not to change the name of this blog but after considering it over and over again I've decided not to.  Had I only recently started this blog I might have changed it, but this blog has been "Psychotik Mouse" for years and I just couldn't bring myself to change it now.

Anyway, those of you who know me will start seeing some changes already.  I've already changed my Twitter and my Steam account profiles... which at this point is pretty much the only big things (aside from my blog).  It's kind of fun... sort of an embracing of the change that's happening in my life.  After all, as my wife can testify, I love change so very very much.

Let's get something straight from the start.

I'm not dead.

At least, not yet.  I know there will come a day when I will kick the proverbial bucket but it hasn't happened yet.  Having said that, I feel like crap.  My wife and son have been sick for the last couple of weeks and thus far I've been feeling kind of smug about not joining them.  Yesterday my number got punched and I started with a cough.  Today I feel like absolute crap... you know, that kind of don't want to do anything but sit quietly and watch Jerry Springer crap?  That's how I feel.

And I hate Jerry Springer.

On the up side, I've had some time on my hands and have managed to (finally) finish Half-Life 2.  It's only taken me several years.  I have to admit that my favorite part of the game by far was the end with the modified Gravity Gun.  I was kind of disappointed when I finished the game.

Anyway, not much to say... mostly just realized I hadn't blogged in awhile.  It's hard to sit and write when you have a very energetic one year old running around the house getting into everything you don't want him to get into.  I figured I'd steal a moment and write something.... just because I can.

I currently have a houseful.  My wife and her friend are baking all sorts of sweet dessert type things for a fundraiser to benefit In His Hands Preschool and Daycare.  So now there's me, my wife, her friend, her friend's two little boys, our son, and the dog in a tiny little apartment of less than 1000 square feet.  To say it's crowded would be a massive understatement.  There really isn't much for me to do.  I can cook when I set a mind to it, but for the most part if it doesn't come in a box or isn't pre-cooked over a flame straight from the forge of Vulcan and hand delivered by vestigial virgins to my front door I'm likely to simply throw whatever random ingredients I have into a pot and pray that what comes out is edible.

Not that I wouldn't eat it anyway if it wasn't... starving kids in Africa being what they are.

Anyway, I'm feeling kind of useless.  The kids are all happily parked in front of some sort of Thomas the Tank Engine movie (although they may have moved on to Kung Fu Panda by now), the kitchen isn't big enough for me to hang out in, and there really isn't much for me to do except blog and attempt to give the illusion of being incredibly productive while actually doing as little as possible.  The up side is that every once in awhile either my wife or her friend pop into the office with some sort of tasty treat to try.  I figure they're either seeking my opinion on what they're making (it's all been fabulous so far) or they're attempting to fatten me up to serve as the main course tonight.  I haven't seen any "How to Serve Man" books lying around, so I think I might be safe.  I think I'll take away my wife's kitchen knives... just to be on the safe side.

I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I am writing this blog entry on an Apple iBook.

I feel so dirty.

I'm sitting at the dining room table enjoying a crappy cup of McDonald's coffee and realizing just how full my life is.  I don't mean I'm particularly busy, I mean I have a lot of good things going for me despite the challenges I'm currently facing.

My life is spiritually full, one might say.

Anyway, I spent more time than I'd care to admit working on my future business website.  I decided to set up a twitter feed for it and took some time to add it to my home page.  It was fun, in a geeky sort of way.  I figured out how to hack the javascript code to make the layout work better for my site so now when I post a tweet it will automatically show up on my site as if I had gone in and edited the HTML.

The next challenge is to figure out how to optimize the site so that it looks as good at 600x800 resolution as it does at 1400x900 resolution.  There's a way to use javascript to pull the end user's screen resolution and redirect them to a site optimized for that resolution, but that would require multiple versions of the same site and that just seems like a waste of time to me.  It's probably better to figure out what the majority of people are using and optimize the site for that and then try to make it look decent at other resolutions.  It seems like a common enough problem that I'm sure I'll find a solution via my good friend Google.

Anyway, I don't really have anything... just wanted to post because I haven't in awhile.

We (my family and I) got an unexpected reprieve over the weekend when we found  out that we were actually going to be able to take a trip to Port Angeles, Washington to visit my family.  It wasn't going to be a long trip (just over the weekend) but it was very much needed.  My wife has been putting in 12 - 14 hour days and had worked for 14 days without so much as a single day off.  Needless to say things were getting tense around the house.

We headed out early Saturday morning and sort of meandered our way up.  We weren't in a hurry by any means, and the opportunity to simply sit and talk to each other about everything and nothing was very much welcome. The trip was mostly uneventful with a couple of stops to stretch our legs and change the baby's diaper.

On Sunday we headed with my dad, brother,  and step-mom to the Olympic Game Farm.  It was the first time our son had been there and we wanted to see how he would respond to the animals.  He likes going to the zoo, so we thought this would be fun for him.  He seemed to like it although sometimes it is hard to tell because he has such a short attention span.   The farm is huge and has a variety of animals ranging from yaks to buffalo.  They have bears, a couple of lions, and a tiger.  The idea is that you pay your admission and drive through the animals rather than having them all in cages.  The most fun part for me is the elk and buffalo.  These animals are free to roam around and will surround the car looking for handouts (they sell loaves of bread at the entrance so you can feed the animals).  Some of them will go as far as to stick their entire heads inside the car hoping you'll feed them something.  One of the buffalo licked my hand as it took a slice of bread from me.

We headed home around noon on Monday.  I decided to drive through Sequim down highway 101 to Olympia instead of backtracking across the Tacoma Narrows like we usually do.  I am very glad we did.  The sun was out and much of the highway runs right along the sound, so the views of the water were breathtaking.  It's a slower pace than taking the freeway, but we weren't in a hurry.

We stopped at the Country Cousins restaraunt in Chehalis (which is kind of a tradition for us now) to have dinner, and capped off our trip at the good ol' Lake Oswego Starbucks for a late coffee with the in-laws.

Overall, it was a fabulous trip and a much needed recharge for all of us.  We learned that traveling with a small child can be a bit rough as our son was getting tired of being in his car seat and thus getting cranky (I found myself actually looking forward to the day when he starts the "are we there yet" phase).  By the time we got home we were very glad to be there.  I'm glad we did it, however, and would do it all again in a heartbeat.

As a man, being unemployed is especially hard.  My whole identity revolves around being the bread winner for my family.  There is a lot of internal pressure that says that if I am not doing something "productive" with my day (i.e. finding a job, making money, etc.)  then I am somehow a failure as a man, husband, and father.  I have found myself being thrust into this role of "househusband", and when I am honest with myself I have to admit that I don't like it very much.

It isn't spending the day with my son that I don't like... it's feeling useless.  It's watching my wife struggle to work two jobs and throw her own pride out there to get government assistance just to make  ends meet knowing that without it... well... we're just not going to make it.  It depresses me, and that depression only serves to make things worse.  It makes motivating myself to do what needs to be done even more difficult than it already is,  I have been at odds with my wife more in the last month than I have been in our entire marriage, and I am simply not myself.

My wife kept telling me that I needed a perspective change, it took me awhile, but I think I finally heard her.  I have found my zen place, and the difference it has made in my attitude has been remarkable.  I found my zen place in watching my son lift his arms to me because he wants me to pick him up.  My zen place is in knowing that my son is happy, healthy, and well adjusted.  It is watching my wife's face light up when she sees that I have washed all of our dirty clothes.  It is knowing that no matter what happens, I will always have my little family to fall back on.

Things are hard, that hasn't changed and probably won't change for a time, but it's going to be OK.  I will eventually find work again.  In the mean time, I get to be home to enjoy my little boy while he's still a little boy.

And really, isn't that enough?

OK, I admit it's been awhile since my last post... actually far too long. What happened? Where did I go? Well, let me tell you.

I got myself unemployed, that's what happened. My contract ended at the end of June and now, in the middle of August, I am still jobless. I have found myself playing the role of Mr. Mom while I've been looking for work which has been both nice, and extremely frustrating at the same time.

It's nice because I get to spend the day with my little boy. We go places together and do stuff... it's a lot of fun. But it's also hard because he's so little and requires a lot of attention. He's at the age where if he can reach it, it goes A) straight into his mouth, or B) gets thrown around, torn up, and then into the mouth. I can't tell you how many times I've had to stop him from playing with the knobs on the stove, or from grabbing the knife that I thought was safely out of reach on the counter, but if he stands on his tippy toes he can just reach it...

Needless to say it's stressful. It's a different stress than, say, being unemployed and not being sure who's going to get paid this month and who's going to have to wait so food can be put on the table, but it's still stress.

So what's on the agenda for me? Well, the job hunt continues (naturally) but in the mean time I am trying to take advantage of what little free time I find myself possessing to start turning this hobby I have of designing web pages into a business. It's hard, especially since my start up budget consists of $0.00 and some pocket lint... but at least I'm not bored.